Jeff Koopersmith

The Truth About Insects
Why Howard Dean is starting to amuse me -- and why he should not apologize for telling the truth
By Jeff Koopersmith

Oct. 20, 2003 -- NEW YORK (apj.us) -- I have been overrun with snail mail and e-mail recently vis-à-vis my personal choice as Democratic nominee for the White House.

Frankly, I don't have one -- at least not yet, and not one of the nine now in the running. I am still hoping Ted Kennedy might muster the courage to enter the race.

Dennis Kucinich strikes my chords well but he is, unfortunately, unelectable. I haven't enough information on General Wesley Clark -- although I've read as much as I can find. He is still due to define himself. The rest are either running for distinction, simply because they are deluded, or might "get lucky."

Yet the idea of Howard Dean as president is intriguing for the reason of courage.

If only Governor Dean could let himself go -- get bold, even zany, and not apologize for it later.

I especially enjoyed two of his quotes from last week.

Dr. Dean foretold that once he was installed in the White House, an outpouring of new Democratic voters would also give that party a majority in Congress once again, hurtling spine-chilling Texas mess-about Tom DeLay, the Republican leader who was once a bug control guy, "back to exterminating cockroaches -- where he belongs."

To my knowledge Dean has not uttered a mea culpa about that one.

Dean did apologize, however, for an additional remarkable truth that he uttered the day before the DeLay cockroach observation. He told supporters that when he was elected Congress would be "scurrying for shelter, just like a giant flashlight on a bunch of cockroaches."

Later, Dean remarked: "That was a bad line. I shouldn't have said that."

Wrong. He should have said it -- and more.

I have to marvel that he did not take time to congratulate the United States Senate for the impending retirement of not-to-be-missed "Senator In a Drum," Don Nickles, who is thankfully retiring and whose business claims to fame were
(1) his college-age ownership of a custodial service, and then
(2) "rising to the top" of a diminutive company that sells replacement parts for gas and diesel engines.

Later, Nickles rose to the summit of human patchiness by verbally mauling President Bill Clinton, his wife, and daughter Chelsea on sleazy cable news programs every chance he got -- and not in a very erudite manner.

These days, congressional roaches abound -- and the heartiest seem to occupy a portion of the majority, at least in the House. In point of fact, the list of Neoconservative insects grows longer each day and Dean -- if he's smart -- will retract his apology and instead proceed to name those creepy-crawlies individually.

Their own constituents know who they are, what they are, and are by now suspicious of their greed-filled agendas.

Dean might gain all the votes he needs by early spring in identifying them -- one by one, primary state by primary state -- taking them on and beating them at their own game.

If it looks like a roach, walks like a roach, and talks like a roach... well, you know the rest.

JEFF KOOPERSMITH is a political consultant, opinion research authority, policy analyst, and self-described "renegade lobbyist."